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2021 Honoree for Dean S. Ammer Award for Healthcare Supply Chain Performance Excellence recognized and saluted

SCHAUMBURG, IL (July 16, 2021) – Bellwether League Foundation’s Hall of Fame for Healthcare Supply Chain Leadership proudly recognizes and welcomes this year’s Honoree for the Dean S. Ammer Award for Healthcare Supply Chain Performance Excellence.

The 2021 Ammer Honoree is Donna Van Vlerah, Senior Vice President, Supply & Support Services, Parkview Health, Fort Wayne, IN.

The Ammer award is named for and dedicated to the first inductee into Bellwether League Foundation’s Hall of Fame for Healthcare Supply Chain Leadership in 2008, and it honors those professionals in the middle of their careers who best exemplify the practice and spirit of healthcare supply chain performance excellence through their innovative leadership and influential project management experience.

Van Vlerah joins Randy V. Bradley, Ph.D., CPHIMS, FHIMSS, Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management and Information Systems, University of Tennessee Knoxville, Haslam College of Business, Department of Supply Chain Management, who earned Ammer Honoree status in 2020. Bradley also is one of 9 faculty members scheduled to speak at Bellwether League Foundation’s 2021 Healthcare Supply Chain Leadership Forum on Wednesday, July 28.

Van Vlerah makes Bellwether League Foundation history as its first dual-award winner. Previously, Van Vlerah was one of six supply chain professionals recognized as part of the inaugural Future Famers Class of 2015.

The Hall of Fame’s Future Famers recognition honors supply chain professionals making significant contributions to their organizations and industry during the first decade or so of their careers as “rising stars” in the profession. With the Ammer recognition, Van Vlerah earns the next step up on the podium.

As the 2021 Ammer Honoree, Van Vlerah will be saluted at the 14th Annual Bellwether League Foundation Induction & Recognition Event (BLFIRE), scheduled for Monday, October 4.

Deborah Templeton, R.Ph., Chairman, Bellwether League Foundation, commended Van Vlerah for her vision, leadership, foresight and devotion to teamwork.

“The concepts of materials management advocated by Dr. Ammer included his vision that materials management should provide for the integration of related materials functions, including purchasing, receiving, inventory control and management and distribution, to provide cost-effective delivery of materials and services to customers throughout an organization,” Templeton said. “Donna has clearly embraced this vision and has worked to extend it into formidable areas, such as the OR and pharmacy. Donna brings rigor to her practice, but as truly a humble leader, directs the credit to her staff. It is a pleasure to recognize her with this award and we look forward to her continued development of the ‘Ammer’ vision.”

An authentic systems thinker whose skills were honed from her earlier military and space program experience, Van Vlerah understands the deep and wide-ranging impacts of changes to routines – for better or for worse. At Parkview, she has united clinicians with supply chain, developed a central distribution center where consolidated operational decisions and activities are made, revamped the system’s courier and transportation service and proactively navigated Parkview’s supply chain through the pandemic ahead of the massive demand-and-consumption wave that emerged from government and health agency directions and regulations.

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About Bellwether League Foundation

Bellwether League Foundation comprises two operating divisions that educate, endow and evaluate professionals in healthcare supply chain performance excellence: The Hall of Fame for Healthcare Supply Chain Leadership and Bellwether Philanthropy.

The Hall of Fame for Healthcare Supply Chain Leadership evaluates and validates professionals submitted for consideration in its three award programs: Bellwether Honorees, Future Famers and Ammer Honorees. The Hall of Fame also offers educational content via the Healthcare Supply Chain Leadership Forum and its “Leaders & Luminaries” multimedia of live, online and printed content.

The Board selects deceased, retired and currently active professionals with a minimum of 25 years of exemplary service and leadership performance in supply chain operations that meet its criteria to be recognized publicly as Bellwether Class Honorees. Those honored demonstrate their qualifications by advancing the profession through work experience and performance and active participation in professional organizations and their communities. Honorees include professionals from hospitals and other healthcare providers, manufacturers and distributors of healthcare products and services, group purchasing organizations, consulting firms, educational institutions and media outlets.

Future Famers represent supply chain professionals early in their healthcare careers who do not yet qualify for Bellwether consideration but have contributed meaningfully to the healthcare supply chain profession.

Honorees who receive the “Dean S. Ammer Award for Healthcare Supply Chain Performance Excellence” represent noteworthy executives and professionals in the middle of their careers who, through their innovative leadership and influential project management experience, best exemplify the practice and spirit of healthcare supply chain performance excellence.

To date, The Hall of Fame for Healthcare Supply Chain Leadership has honored 120 innovators, leaders and pioneers in healthcare supply chain management in five distinct categories: Education & Media, Supply Chain Management, Group Purchasing, Supplier and Consulting Services. Bellwether League also has recognized 33 Future Famers, and two Ammer Honorees.

Bellwether Philanthropy offers grants, scholarships and capstone educational projects to college-bound high school students who plan to study supply chain curricula, current collegiate students who major in supply chain-related careers and professionals who pursue continuing education through associations and universities.

Launched in late July 2007 by a group of influential veterans in the healthcare supply chain industry, Bellwether League Foundation began as a 501(c)(6) not-for-profit corporation that identifies and honors professionals who have demonstrated significant leadership in, influence on and contributions to the healthcare supply chain. It upgraded to a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in January 2021.

Bellwether League Foundation currently is funded by six Founding and Platinum Sponsors – GHX, HealthTrust, Owens & Minor, Premier, Vizient and Wingfoot Media – and a host of additional sponsors.

For more information on how to become a sustaining or corporate sponsor or to nominate Bellwether Honoree, Ammer Honoree and Future Famer candidates visit BellwetherLeague.org.